From classics to contemporary: The evolution of Swampscott’s summer reading program

Saturday

Jul 27, 2013 at 12:01 AMJul 27, 2013 at 8:38 PM

While the stories and settings of the books remain the same for each child who reads them, the Swampscott summer reading assignments are constantly evolving.

Middle school and high school students found a few changes in their reading lists as they prepared for summer this year.

According to the head of Swampscott High School’s English Department Joanna Ganci, the summer reading program first took its current form 12 years ago under the former department head, Joanna Defeo.

While choosing books and assignments is a collaborative effort among English teachers that begins in late April, Ganci is responsible for the ultimately editing and publicizing the book list. Over the years, she said, the program has undergone many changes.

Abigail Feldman

While the stories and settings of the books remain the same for each child who reads them, the Swampscott summer reading assignments are constantly evolving.

Middle school and high school students found a few changes in their reading lists as they prepared for summer this year.

According to the head of Swampscott High School’s English Department Joanna Ganci, the summer reading program first took its current form 12 years ago under the former department head, Joanna Defeo.

While choosing books and assignments is a collaborative effort among English teachers that begins in late April, Ganci is responsible for the ultimately editing and publicizing the book list. Over the years, she said, the program has undergone many changes.

“It evolved from a traditional assignment of one reading,” Ganci said. “Today, we want to try to balance a required reading with a book of student’s choice.”

Ganci explained that the list changed partially in response to student feedback collected anecdotally or through surveys each year.

“We’re always trying to learn from our mistakes,” she said.

This year, for example, the department chose to adjust reading instructions. Instead of simply directing students to annotate the assigned novel, as they did in the past, teachers outlined particular literary elements for students to focus on while reading.

“We realized you can’t just ask a student to annotate a book,” Ganci said. “That’s not giving them enough direction. This year we gave more specific instructions. Every year we try to make it better and more clear.”

Ganci hopes the new instructions will better link the summer assignments to the each grade’s curriculum. Freshmen English, for example, focuses on teaching archetypes, such as the “hero’s journey.” Sophomores explore coming of age and identity stories, while juniors and seniors focus on American literature and theme, and world literature, respectively.

Recent Swampscott High School graduate Taylorlyn Stephan agreed that more structured analysis directions would be very helpful to students.

“I remember coming in the first day of school and basically being told all of our notes were wrong, and that we’d all failed, and that was really stressful,” she said. “But after learning how to do it, [the assignment] was really helpful.”

Exploring new topics

Head of reference and young adult services at the Swampscott Public Library Sandy Moltz said she has also noticed other changes, like a more multicultural scope, in middle school books lists over the years. Students can now choose from new sections such as “Translations from other countries” and “Fiction from other cultures.”

Stephan, who’s younger brother Matthew will attend high school in the fall, said she noticed the new mixture of books when she saw Matthew’s reading list.

“There’s more variety in the books than what I remember reading, which was definitely helpful because I was able to go through and recommend books,” Stephan said. “There’s science fiction. There’s historical fiction. There are autobiographies and then pop culture books. Different books draw different kids.”

While this year’s instructions are a little stricter and more traditional, the middle school lists were once more free form, Moltz said. Students were allowed to choose some of their own books based on suggestions.

“During the last couple years, it was a little more loose and I could recommend other books,” Moltz said. “So if somebody liked books about sports, they didn’t have to read something already on the list, as long as it was a real book.”

Teachers have also added popular contemporary pieces to the list to encourage more people to read, Moltz said. Newer publications such as “The Alchemist,” by Paulo Coelho, and “The Book Thief,” by Markus Zusak, have replaced traditional required readings such as “A Separate Peace,” written by John Knowles in 1959.

Other popular new books such as “Twilight,” by Stephanie Meyer, on the other hand, have come down from the list after a couple years of use in order to encourage kids to read new material, according to Ganci.

While Moltz is glad to see newer works included, she finds the decreasing number of classical literature pieces on the list a little surprising.

“There’s still some Kurt Vonnegut and Jane Austin, but other than that there really aren’t too many classics,” she said. “It’s kind of a funny list that way. It’s not a lot of contemporary, not a lot of classic.”

Overall, however, the list has remained much the same as it has been for several years.

“My kids are a lot older, and I would say that there’s a huge portion of those lists that are the same as when they were in school,” Moltz said.

One change that Moltz finds a little problematic is the middle school’s recent decision that requires students to buy the summer reading books. Moltz said she worries that the cost of books could be a hardship to families with several kids in school at the same time.

“Obviously I’m a book person, so I don’t have a problem with people buying books,” Moltz said. “But if you have three kids and you have to buy a book for each kid, some of [the books] can be a little expensive.”

Continuing to build skills

According to Ganci, the purpose of summer reading is to keep students sharp during the idlest months of summer.

“There’s a lot of research to show that kids lose a lot of skills over the summer,” Ganci said.

Though not all kids enjoy the extra work, Ganci assures students that the reading isn’t assigned just to ruin their summer.

“There isn’t a high school in America that does not assign summer reading and considers itself a rigorous school,” she said.

While Ganci acknowledges that some kids take short cuts, she believes the program is effective.

“Over the summer I get a lot of emails from students asking questions,” she said. “For me that’s a positive sign.”

Moltz agrees that even with the new requirements to buy certain books, students still visit the library often to take out other summer books.

“They still go out all the time, the summer reading books, believe me,” she said. “They come back and they look ratty, worn out, but it’s a good thing.”

Stephan agreed that the program was effective, saying the best summer reading assignments were the ones that force people to be active readers.

“If the assignments are to write an essay or do something more thought provoking, it helps students with their writing skills and teach them critical reading,” she said.

Ganci, who said she has seen comparable summer reading lists for other schools, believes the Swampscott program is on par with other schools, requiring students to read between two and four books each summer.

“This year we reduced the number of books by one,” Ganci said. “We realized in a short summer like this one, it might have been too much to ask.”

Moreover, Ganci believes that the Swampscott program offers more choice to students, compared to many other schools.

Moltz agreed that the options for summer projects to correspond with books allowed for creativity while still building skills.

“I think the requirements for the high school are interesting because they allow a lot of leeway for kids who are artistic to do artistic things,” she said. “[The program at] the middle school is pretty good. It gives students a foundation for how to write a report which a lot of kids at the middle school, I think, don’t know how to do.”

Keeping with technology

Perhaps the newest aspect of the summer reading program at the library is the new system, Overdrive, that allows students to borrow ebooks and audio books. The electronic copies are ordered through the network of local libraries called Noble, and can be accessed on Ipads, Ipods, Kindles, Nooks and other devices.

While the new system means that people no longer have to visit the actually library building to obtain certain books, Moltz sees the new system as a good change.

“The idea that we would provide this new service, just like we’ve provided library service for thousands of years,...it’s a positive thing,” she said. “We have to move ahead or we would be irrelevant.”

At the same time, Moltz continues to plan library activities, including a robotics program and college night event in the fall, in order to encourage students to visit for more than just summer reading.

“I want us to also be a place that is a community center and a place for kids to feel welcome.”

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